AROUND THE WORLD.

Putin denounces racial, religious bias

July 26, 2002|By Items compiled from Tribune news services.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA — President Vladimir Putin strongly denounced racial and religious prejudice Thursday during a meeting in the Kremlin with a 28-year-old woman who was seriously injured when she tore down an anti-Semitic sign attached to a bomb.

"If we let this chauvinistic bacteria of either national or religious intolerance develop, we will ruin the country," Putin said Thursday night.

Tatyana Sapunova, an office manager from Moscow, suffered serious injuries to her face, hands and legs on May 27 when she stopped on a highway just southwest of Moscow and pulled down a poster scrawled with the words "Death to Yids" in thick block letters, triggering an explosive device.

The bombing underscored the depth of racial and ethnic animosities that plague Russian society today, something that Putin emphasized during his hourlong meeting with Sapunova.